Nuclear Power as a Renewable Energy Source

Would you want to live in the dark ages without any electricity? Do you want your future kids to live in those conditions? Of course not, everyone should be saying no to this question. If we don’t want to revert to these times then we need to start thinking about new, more efficient energy sources before our current resources run out. By 2040 our global energy needs will rise by over 25%, and nuclear power is one of the cleanest, most efficient, and reliable methods to satisfy this need for more energy.

One driving factor for nuclear power is its efficiency compared to other power generating methods. To put it into perspective, 1kg of coal can generate 3 kWh: meanwhile, 1kg of uranium can generate 400 kilowatts an hour of electricity. More on the subject, if uranium was recycled allowing maximum burnup potential, that same 1kg of uranium can generate more than 7,000,000 kWh. This efficiency is what makes nuclear power so viable. To put it into perspective, generating 1000 MW of electricity a year requires two-thousand train cars full of coal, for uranium to make the same amount of energy it requires only 10 cubic meters. Studies at Harvard School of Public Health indicate that the particles from burning coal are responsible for around fifteen-thousand premature deaths in the U.S. every year [Wilson and Spengler (1996), p. 212.]. Up to 500,000 tons of sulfur are produced from burning coal, 300,000 tons of sulfur from burning oil, and 200,000 tons of sulfur from burning natural gas: meanwhile, a 1,000 megawatts electric nuclear power plant releases no pollutants into the sky and much less radioactivity into the environment than is encountered from airline travel. The reason why nuclear power plants are so efficient is that they require less maintenance and they were made to last 1.5 to 2 years before needing to refuel.

You might not suspect this, but nuclear power plants are one of the safest methods to create energy. Comparing the number of lives lost when creating a gigawatt of energy will show you: coal kills 37; oil, 32; gas, 2; and nuclear, 1. You might not believe this but it is true. One of the only and most well known nuclear failures was at a power plant called Chernobyl. Chernobyl was a nuclear power plant located in Ukraine that had a critical meltdown in the year 1984. This accident resulted in 31 deaths from extreme radiation exposure at the sight. The residents who were exposed to radiation but didn’t die were damaged in the long term. They would later die to various types of cancer. Chernobyl could have been prevented if the right safeguards were in place. Chernobyl lacked a containment structure around the core. If one was installed there would not have been a single injury or death because the structure would have contained the blast.

There are a few other renewable energy sources, one of them being solar. Solar power might sound like a good idea until you take into effect the highly toxic waste stream of solvents and metals that requires special disposal technology. A 1,000 MWe solar electric plant can generate 6,850 tons of waste over thirty years. A solar thermal plant making the same amount of energy will generate 435,000 tons of manufacturing waste, 16,300 tons of which are contaminated with metals like lead and chromium. This and many other reasons are why nuclear power plants outperform solar power plants in the long run.

We are still inventing new ways and methods harness nuclear power. We are now making nuclear reactors that no longer need hard to build safeguards because the safeguards are built into the reactor: meaning, these new reactors physically can not have a meltdown. Another idea that was proposed was a small modular nuclear power plant that can be used to help developing countries by supplying them cheap but clean energy. This is just the beginning of our capabilities with nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy does not require a lot of space, it’s more efficient, has a low to non-net contribution to global warming, and it is reliable. Nuclear energy can solve our world's energy crisis. Of course, we wouldn’t only use nuclear power in the future. Most likely we will have multiple ways to create electricity in the future: however, it should be a huge contributor like coal is now. The future of our world depends on nuclear power because it is more abundant, it is cheaper, it's more reliable, and it's more efficient than any other energy source.